A cultural preservation product, built with care.
Qissa exists because diaspora children deserve to see themselves in the stories their grandparents grew up with.
The stories we grew up with.
Afghan, Persian, and Muslim families in the diaspora carry a quiet worry: that the stories their parents told them — the folk tales, the nursery rhymes, the Ramadan traditions, the gentle lessons wrapped in a grandmother's voice — will not survive the transition to a new country.
The bedtime shelf in most of our homes is CoComelon, Bluey, and Paw Patrol. Wonderful entertainment, but none of it speaks to where we came from. The tools that exist today for personalized children's books are excellent — and entirely Western.
Qissa is built for the parents who want their child to hear Mullah Nasruddin stories at bedtime, in Dari, with their own Baba narrating. The parents who want a Ramadan book that actually reflects their family's Ramadan. The parents whose kids live far from Bibi Jaan, and want to keep that connection alive through story.
Not a translation. An origin.
Every library is authored natively in its own language. Every story is reviewed before publication. Every illustration belongs to original characters — no borrowed IP.
Each story lives in its home language.
A Dari story is authored in Dari, drawing from Dari register, idiom, and tradition. We do not run English text through a translator and call it heritage.
Every template is read before it ships.
Automated safety catches the obvious. Human review catches the subtle — the off-sounding word, the cultural detail that lands wrong, the religious nuance.
No borrowed brands, no copycat aesthetics.
Aayah, Yusuf, Bibi Jaan, Baba Jaan, Mullah Nasruddin, and Pishi are ours. Designed to work across stories, libraries, and languages — and to grow with Qissa.
Strict Islamic content guidelines.
No depiction of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ or other prophets. Modest defaults. Content is reviewed against mainstream scholarly consensus before publication.
A Hoshmand AI product.
Qissa is built and maintained by Hoshmand AI, a small studio building data-driven AI tools for professionals, students, and now families. Our sibling products include PathFinder (education guidance), Planora (construction scheduling), and Care360 (healthcare).
The common thread: institutional-quality tools that were previously only affordable to large organizations, made available to individuals at a fair price. Qissa brings that same principle to the bedside.